Posted on 02/25/2021 3:30:34 PM PST by BenLurkin
A stunning fresco in the garden of Pompeii's Casa dei Ceii (House of the Ceii) has been painstakingly laser-cleaned and touched up with new paint by expert restorers.
The artwork — of hunting scenes — was painted in the so-called 'Third' or 'Ornate' Pompeii style, which was popular around 20–10 BC and featured vibrant colours.
Poor maintenance since the house was dug up in 1913–14 saw the hunting fresco and others deteriorate, particularly at the bottom, which is more vulnerable to humidity.
The main section of the fresco depicts a lion pursuing a bull, a leopard pouncing on sheep and a wild boar charging towards some deer.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Yes, things like Hillsdale College, things like a financially and ethically sound business, apolitical charities that help change lives - like restoring a smile to little kids born with a cleft palette, personally helping advance a deserving young person, financially assisting in getting adoptions for babies that were saved from abortion, adopting kids that have lost or been abandoned by their parents and/or donating to organizations that support that, supporting young talent when they are also morally sound, and I could go on adding to the list.
Just think of everything in society like you do a child of your own, and how you try to invest in that child’s future materially and with morally sound ideas, and then extend that idea beyond your family to other folks in society. If someone had really great wealth they could even start another Hillsdale College, extending the availability of the kind of education Hillsdale tries to provide.
I could go on.
I don’t think that the Roman (or current) decadence was due to having the money for nice frescoes, or due to posthumous artistic endowments.
Due to having enough wealth to have ‘idle hands syndrome’, that’s another matter.
I won’t pretend to have the answers, but in terms of one’s own wealth, one could always try to establish the “Howard Family Trust”, or similar. Although I doubt it would come with the (ahem) benefits that Heinlien’s version did.
Seriously, unless you’re a Ford, or Carnegie, or some such, you’re not likely to make a dent in anything that might last more than a generation or two.
Ask today’s kids if they know who Danny Kaye is, or if they’ve seen one of his movies. I mean, who could forget ‘The Court Jester’?
A thousand years from now, if this world is still turning, it’s likely less than a dozen names from the 20th century will last, and none of us are going to make that list.
As for me, it’s probably a little late to worry about children for my ‘posterity’, so phooey. My goal is to spend it all (if possible) before I go, and if not, leave what’s left to friends and cousins who will hopefully carry a pleasant memory for a while at least.
Or alternatively, I could start accepting donations toward my proposed “FreepHenge”, the biggest Henge this side of the Meridian... :P
Hillsdale, Independence Institute, FEE.org, Cato Institute.
Makes no difference, some jackass will claim they are all white supremacists.
The Italians need to protect these better. You can literally walk up to artwork and pick off flakes of plaster. Not to mention risk from mold, microorganisms, oxidation.
That said, my favorite sites are the mosaic floor and wall tiles. The color is fused to the tile for eternity and some sites have 35 million of them depicting ancient life.
I was thinking the exact same thing.
I loved National Geographic when I was a kid, years ago. So much historical info, beautiful pictures. Now it’s a ridiculous Leftist mess and insults anyone with a functioning brain.
We always use a wild boar to hunt deer.
Awww thank you so much! I hope I can get there before I leave this world.
Oh, that truly is stunning. Thanks for posting.
(L) Illustrated reconstruction, from a CyArk/University research partnership, of how the Temple of Apollo may have
looked before Mt. Vesuvius erupted. (R) The same location today.
“I could go on.”
That’s a good start but needs to be fleshed out.
We need to go on the idealogical offensive. Heavily against the cancel theology of Big “Tech”.
Hunting? Oh no did the Pompeii’s SNOWFLAKES protested the painting? 😃
Institutions seem to follow a regular and virtually inevitable decay from their original purpose over time. Try to think of an institution more than a century or two old that you have full confidence and faith in their continuing their original mission an purpose.
With that in mind, I would try to minimize the amount of surplus wealth by deploying it for use while still alive. And that which is left should be left with people/institutions who will put it to good use sooner than later (perhaps even state this in the bequest), so that 50 years down the line it’s not funding some “charity” gone rogue and doing the exact opposite of what you intended.
Awesome!
Very nice. Amazing renderings for the period - I don’t think I’ve seen anything else from Pompeii to beat it.
One thing I have done is go virtual through Google earth. Not quite the same thing however, you do get a great sense of the ruins that way. I also ‘visited’ the pyramids that way. Extraordinary.
That’s amazing!
Yup...Hillsdale
Not all of our ancient ancestors needed ‘science and decadence’ to create compelling art. In many cases, their knowledge and ‘art’ came from basic human experience.
(The cave paintings at Chauvet and Lascaux - q.v. - may not be as technically correct, but they are full of kinetic veracity and hit the mark in terms of the recognition of the people of their time; and they are far older than Pompeii.)
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